states. what is a governor supposed to do? they re trying to send a message to the rest of the country. make sure that no one s homeless, no one s hungry, and make sure that we always continue to treat people like human beings. i m pamela brown in washington. you are live in the cnn newsroom. hurricane fiona, this massive storm, might drop 30 inches of rain on puerto rico before it moves on. and already, we are seeing scenes like this on your screen. flooded rivers tearing away bridges and making matters worse, no power. the island s entire electric grid is offline. it failed and plunged 3 million americans into darkness, hours before fiona made landfall. and puerto rico s main energy supplier says power will most likely be out for days. fema s assistant administrator for response and recovery told me just a short time ago, that more than 300 fema responders were already on the ground before the storm hit. let s bring in cnn meteorologist karen maginnis, monitoring fi
we can t lose the drive that ef-every day to make sure that this island is vibrant and shining. and again, fema here to support the local and puerto rican government here. but they are doing so where trauma lingers. where a lot of people were fearing what has now happened. a power outage. 100% of the power gone. hospitals evacuated. so now the instability that they fear moving forward lingers and that is also part of the story they ll have to cope with. pamela? all right. thanks so much, laei leyla. i want to go to karen now. what do the hours ahead look like? as you can imagine, what leyla just mentioned, everyone is plunged into darkness. 3 plus million people. and now they are facing a nighttime where they don t know just how much those rivers are rising, if there s going to be a debris flow, which we ve seen numerous reports of, and people trapped in a restaurant, in cars, in their homes. so this is a devastating situation, but a lot of fear,
let s bring in cnn meteorologist karen maginnis, monitoring fiona from the cnn severe weather center. we also have cnn s leyla santiago in san juan. laei leyla, first to you. millions of people will spend tonight in total darkness, not knowing when the power will turn on as this hurricane rages on. is puerto rico equipped for this challenge? reporter: well, that depends on who you ask. fema says it is, with more than 300 responders on the ground. but, you know, right now, the rain is still coming down. the wind gusts, you can still very much feel them. and i m in the northeastern part of the island. it s really the southern coast that was really battered in the interior, dealing with the flash floods. let s go over the images to show you. i can told you that there is a cancer center that had to be evacuated. patients taken out, because there is no power, island-wide power outage those patients. also, i want to show you the